


Nothing But

by misscam



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-18
Updated: 2008-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-17 12:54:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misscam/pseuds/misscam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Families aren’t neat. A wedding. A funeral. The extended Adama family, and nothing but the rain. [Adama/Roslin, Kara/Lee, Tigh, others.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing But

**Author's Note:**

> Post-Revelations. Spoilers for that. Particularly one honking one. When the show comes back, it’s definitely going to make this AU. For dear Saz, because. Many thanks to lyricalviolet for beta.

Nothing But  
by misscam

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

II

 _Earth, one month after landing day_

II

It is not a well-attended wedding.

It could have been, had it been the Admiral and the President getting married, making a symbol of hope and rejuvenation for the Fleet. But it's not. It's Laura and Bill, and not as much a symbol as an affirmation.

Laura Roslin marries William Adama a rainy day on Earth in the first building they've erected there, having only a select few present.

Lee. Kara, looking a little lost and out of her skin. Tigh, in the shadows, as if not wanting to be seen at all. Athena, leaning against Helo and Hera leaning against neither, looking distant. Dee. Gaeta. Doc Cottle, half a guest and half in professional capacity. Gaius Baltar, looking as if he's personally blessed this love and brought it into being, but really there because Laura still likes to know where she has him. A few pilots, a few marines. A small crowd.

Rings and vows are exchanged softly, as if in a hush, Laura's voice even shaking at one point. They've never yelled their love out loud, and they still don't, and Lee dares a glance at Kara to wonder.

He used to wonder at his father. He doesn't anymore, not when Laura smiles like that, and Bill smiles like that, and the shared kiss is as gentle as it is restrained between them.

Later, it won't be.

The rain doesn't hold up, a slow steady drizzle of misery that Gaius has assured all really is good for the soil and keeping radiation levels down. Perhaps. Lee just isn't sure it's good for the people, already so tired and battered.

This is Earth, but it is no Promised Land. No brighter sun than Caprica, no whiter beaches than Picon, no lusher fields than Aerelon. This is a dream broken. They just have nowhere else to go. No one really argued with Roslin on that. No one had the will to, or the strength, or any suggestion of what else to do. So here they are - to stay, to build, to live.

Live. As much as to his father, it's that Lee thinks his new step-mom is committing to now. A go at life, against all odds. They all are, buildings slowly being erected against the sky, sometimes even using materials from the ruins they're still scavenging for anything to use.

Life and love and marriage among the ruins on Earth. It's a new beginning. It has to be.

They're married to it, now.

II

When Laura steps into his arms, Bill closes his eyes and doesn't care they're not as much dancing to the music as hugging, her hands stroking his back and her head resting against his shoulder.

They don't say anything.

There's enough in silence right now.

II

Another dance, another time, and it would be Lee and her on the dance floor, Dee thinks, and isn't sure if she misses it, him or just someone to feel a little less like a tiny human on a very large planet.

It is New Caprica's colonisation all over again, except that was done in hope and this is done in defiance, and except that was Baltar and this is Roslin.

It might make a difference.

"Hey," Sharon says, offering a glass that Dee accepts. "Didn't expect to see you here."

"Once an Adama, always an Adama," Dee says wryly. "At least as far as the Admiral is concerned. Once you're family, you're family."

"Yes," Sharon agrees, smiling at Helo and Hera twirl slowly to a tune no one else seem to hear. "Flew another recon today."

"Got anything?"

"We found another vault."

Dee nods, a bit distractedly, asking the question more of habit than belief. "Any survivors?"

"No. But more food and seeds. We have enough for a few hard winters now. More, if we don't share with the Cylons."

If we don't share with your people, Dee doesn't say. Increasingly, it seems harder to tell the difference, with the XO and Anders and the Chief and maybe even Kara. Dee hasn't discounted that possibility.

She just isn't sure if that would make it easier to reconcile - Lee loving a Cylon, or Lee loving a human. Maybe some things just have to be let go and not settled.

"To good winters," she tells Sharon, clinking glasses.

"Nothing but."

II

Laura watches.

Around her, Bill and Athena are dancing, Lee and Kara are very purposely not, and there's a low hiss of voices and clunk of bottles. To celebrate her wedding, hers and Bill's. The first on Earth. Not the last, she hopes. Not the last by far. Someone has to lead there too, and now it is them.

"Congratulations," Saul Tigh says, and she tilts her head a little to the left to see him leaning against the wall. "Didn't believe it when the old man invited me."

"I'm glad you came," she says, watching his hand clutch the bottleneck. Even now, she can't see anything but human skin. Cylon Saul. Bill doesn’t want to see it, and she isn't sure how well she can either.

"You have no love lost for me," Saul says, but it's not really hostile, merely stating a fact.

"No," she agrees. "But Bill does."

"For you too."

Bonds between people aren't just blood, she thinks faintly, feeling the band of gold on her finger. Love. Friendship. Family by proxy.

"Yes," she agrees. "And I can dance, too."

He doesn't resist when she takes his hand and leads him onto the floor, and across the room, Bill smiles.

II

"The old man and the prez," Kara says, laughing a bit as they watch the dance from their darkened corner. It has a strange disharmony to it, and her smile seems more haunted than happy. "Does it bother you?"

"I don't know," he says honestly. "But I can't see them apart anymore."

"As easy as that?"

"As hard as that," he corrects, and when he kisses her, she tastes of bitter beer.

II

Despite it all, Laura finds herself enjoying the light on Earth.

Day and night never had a meaning on Galactica, where stars were constant and never suns. There was just an arbitrary line drawn, to keep track of days and a calendar even when the reason to have it had been killed a little.

Now it's gaining meaning again, with a colony slowly rising, and a battlestar and a baseship looming above it like guarding shadows. They're all on Earth time now.

Earth, Laura thinks, watching daylight slowly diminish; clouds still covering the sun and dropping rain. Earth. New Earth, someone in the Quorum had suggested, but she hadn't taken that name. There is nothing new about this Earth but their presence on it.

Even now it's hard to think of it without bitterness. So much they put on it. The very word was hope. Earth. They never thought they'd find this, a Caprica not brought on by Cylons. In fact, problem is they never thought much about what they would find at all. They envisioned it. They didn't think it through.

She's learned from that. She is learning. The initial hard, cold grief and anger slightly dealt with, she's thinking in lessons; to learn and to give.

Even clouded, it is beautiful to see a sky again, and she's stepped out to watch it. Foolishly so, she has to learn.

She doesn't hear the attack; but she does feel the first blow.

II

Kara doesn't frak as Lee remembers.

Oh, the sex is still a fight with her, a battle of bodies; nails across skin like daggers, sweat clinging to skin to conquer it, kissing a duel where tongues should be cheating, breasts a deadly weapon when brushing against his chest and legs locked around him so hard they might as well be chains.

That he remembers.

This desperation he doesn't. It's almost tangible, like a taste on her skin when he scrapes his teeth against her collarbone. Like the curve in her neck when flips over and presses her back against his chest. Like the catch in her breath when he thrusts. Like the dark of her lashes when she closes her eyes and he wonders what she sees.

She believed in Earth, he remembers. As Roslin, but Roslin had faith. Kara had the way, and here they are.

"It's not your fault," he whispers, and she turns over to straddle him, her hair falling around her like a dawn as she does.

"Yes," she says. "It is."

II

Pain can be strangely abstract, Laura considers. It can be something that isn't really physical - a broken heart, a broken dream, finding an Earth that is nothing but disappointment. It can be the head making the body hurt because it was no other way to let it out. All of those, she's felt.

This isn't that.

II

It takes Saul three bottles to get himself to walk over to Bill, waiting for a rejection every step of the way over.

It doesn't come. Neither does any encouragement. Bill just waits.

"I should have told you," Saul finally manages.

"Maybe you did and I didn't listen," Bill says, watching Athena lean down to listen to her daughter's intent whispers. "But who could have known Cylons can bald?"

The laughter is almost like old times, and Saul decides it's close enough for comfort.

II

"If you are not here in the morning," Lee says, trying to keep his voice light, "I will put a leash on you."

"I got nowhere left to go," Kara replies, pressing her head against his chest and watching her fingers dig into the earth. The tent they've found is a poor protection against the elements, but it's shelter enough for privacy. For frakking, yes. But for conversation, too.

This still won't go anywhere if she doesn't talk to him, he thinks. She might not be running to Sam this time, but she sure isn't moving with him either. She's just standing still, as if purpose has left her.

"What happened to you?" he asks, but his only answer is a kiss more punishment than caress.

II

Bill's rage is still impressive even when silent, Laura rediscovers.

He doesn't say anything as Doc Cottle checks her out, doesn't even comment when her wrist is bandaged, and only exhales when he sees the pattern of bruises across her abdomen.

But his glare holds enough anger she's half surprised it doesn't make everyone within a five-mile radius flee. He can’t protect them all, he has to know. But then, so should she.

"I'll look at your wrist in the morning," Cottle says, his voice gentle. "But I don't think anything is broken."

"Thank you," she says softly, watching him retreat and counting to five before she looks up at Bill. "You heard him."

"You're frakking lucky Hera saw what happened and told Sharon," he says calmly, but voice not giving an inch.

"They were just drunks, Bill."

"They attacked the President of the Twelve Colonies. You don't tell me what they just were."

"Bill," she says softly, and takes his hand. "They're angry with me. I led them to this planet. I can understand that..."

"No," he says sharply. "I will not allow you to carry your guilt like a target on your back."

She could argue it, point out all the ways she has a legitimate claim on that guilt, but she won’t win that fight, she knows. In some ways, Bill is as gentle as a summer and as easy to rest in. In others, he’s still harder than steel.

She exhales, and nods, just once and just briefly. It's still enough to make him relax, and when he kisses her, it's softer than the rain.

II

"Are you sure you're not a Cylon?" Gaius says. At least that's what he's attempting to say, which would be easier if he didn't have his tie currently yanked into his mouth, and his shirt in the bushes, his pants about to join them. "Because I've had some bad experiences there and I.... aiiiii."

"Shut up," Dee says darkly, climbing over him. "You'd be far more of a genius if you shut up more."

He does.

II

Halfway between the human settlement and the Cylon settlement, Saul has found a rock. Not to crawl under, just to sit at and idly drink. It helps the hangover by postponing it indefinitely.

Being a Cylon on a nuked-to-hell Earth should never be faced sober, anyway.

He somehow knows she's come even before he feels her hand on his shoulder. She always seeks him out now. Caprica Six, who he's tried to find Ellen's forgiveness in and isn't sure what he's ended up with.

"You're not happy with them, Saul," she says.

"Hmm," he says, not encouragement, and not rejection.

"I'm making a home," she goes on. "There's room. We'd all be so happy if you joined us. We love you."

Cylons playing happy families, Saul thinks. They'll soon enough discover families are as frakked up as everything else, created or born into. Or even adopted into, and he thinks faintly of Bill.

"Why do you keep going to them?" she asks, and he finally looks at her.

"Why do you keep coming to me?"

"Love."

"Exactly," he says, and takes another swing of the bottle. Families, he decides, shouldn't be faced sober either.

II

Outside, the rain has quieted, almost a hush of water walling out all other sounds. Inside, Bill Adama is kissing the shoulder of his wife, letting love wall out all other emotions.

There's the fear cancer will still claim her; he shuts that up by resting a hand on her hip, feeling the strong bone underneath the soft skin.

There's the continued logistical concern of establishing a colony; he lets that be overwhelmed by her giggles as she kisses his nose.

There's the trouble of devastated morale in the fleet; he silences that with the friction of her inner thigh against his outer.

There's the bitter irony of everything; he quiets that with the feeling of flesh against his palm as he cups a breast.

There's a lifetime of fatigue; he forgets with her fingers in his hair, never caring about the grey.

There's the anger of having his oldest friend being what should really be an enemy; he drowns that out with her soft gasps as he finds a pace between their bodies.

There's the lingering hate for the fall of the Twelve Colonies that even peace now can't completely patch over; he lets go as Laura kisses him, biting down on his lip as her body shudders.

It won't be silent forever, he knows. He's married the President and she's married the Admiral. It's a package deal. There is no silence that lasts.

"I love you," he whispers, kissing her temple as she moves onto her stomach to look at him.

"Yes," she agrees. "I should hope you didn't marry me for the hair."  
II

"You know what I said about parents having to die for children to reach their full potential?" Kara whispers, her thumb pressing against Lee's lip so hard he can't actually say anything at all. "Maybe that's not always true. Maybe sometimes, the children have to die for the parents to know how strong they are."

"Kara..."

She shakes her head wildly. "Families aren't neat like that. The son doesn't just replace the father. The daughter just doesn't fulfill her mother's vision. Families aren't neat, Lee."

"You're telling me," he says jokingly, thinking of his own. The extended Adama family. Zak's ghost. Dad. The new stepmother, coincidentally also the President of the Twelve Colonies. Saul, a brother for his father in all but blood. Athena, a daughter claimed. Kara. Maybe. Maybe.

"Yes," she whispers, her eyes wide. "I'm telling you."

II

Death shouldn't be faced sober, but Saul still does.

It feels strangely more peaceful that way.

II

It is a well-attended funeral.

Cylons are there, and humans are there, a show of unity in grief that feels strangely organic after all. D'Anna makes a speech, talking cryptically about God's love and the Final Five and Roslin listens intently to every word. Still trying to discover the fifth, Lee knows.

Bill makes a speech. It's only six words, but still feels strangely enough.

"Saul Tigh was a good friend," Bill says, lowering his head.

The Cylons hold a ceremony after, but the humans don't stay for that. It's too early, or too late, and there's still the fight over where he should be buried.

Lee knows Laura intends to win that one. He intends to help, searching her and his father out after exchanging some awkward condolences with Caprica Six.

He finds them in what they both refer to as the future 'Cabin One', a joke he doesn't quite get and isn't sure he's intended to.

His father doesn't even notice him, kneeling on the floor and leaning against Laura as if she's the only thing steady to cling to.

"We'll find who did this," she is saying, and there's anger in her voice like a razor. "Human or Cylon, we'll find who did this. I'm not sure the Cylons would kill one of their Final Five, but I can't discount..."

"Don't call him that."

"But he was, Bill."

"I don't care what he was," Bill says quietly, finally lowering his head into Laura's lap as she caresses his temple; the same circular movement over and over. "He was my friend."

"Yes," she says lightly, meeting Lee's gaze for a brief second before lowering her own head to rest against Bill's, a strangely protective gesture. "He died as that. Nothing but."

Lee leaves them there, stepping out into the brilliant sunshine. It's an onslaught of light, and he blinks against it, adjusting his eyes to a new day.

In the dawn, Earth looks almost pretty, rising sun caressing new building and ruins alike, bathing them in the same sort of hopeful glow. New beginnings. Even now, new beginnings.

A little to the side, Kara stands, and he isn't surprised to see her. Not really.

"I came to see how the old man is doing," she says a bit too brightly. Tigh's death has hit her too, he knows. Hit them all. Cylon or not, he was one of them too. Families don't just show themselves in life. Sometimes, they're even clearer in death.

"Laura's with him."

She nods, knowing. "Are they all right?"

"They will be," he says, because they will. They've been the centre too long to fall apart, the strength shared between them tested enough to hold. Maybe that can be true for all of them.

Kara smiles a little, too briefly to take hope in, but she steps closer too, looking at him intently.

"What do you see, Apollo?"

"Nothing but the sun," he tells her, watching the sky, and her smile is as genuine as it is sad.

It might be a beautiful day on Earth still, he thinks.

FIN


End file.
